I went to go see Red Tails tonight, and it was an awesome movie.
The movie focuses on the Tuskeegee Airmen, an all-black segregated fleet. The pilots of this fleet were given old hand-me-down planes, low-down scouting jobs that had almost no meaning in winning the war, and almost zero military respect. The white Air Force generals "gave them the exam before the lessons", as a quote from movie. When they were given the flight/combat test, they were still inexperienced. So they were considered 'inferior' and 'not fit for combat', when in reality, those pilots were as good if not better than the white pilots.
The movie begins with US bombers that are flying over Italy in 1944. The Bomber fleet is accompanied by fighter planes that are expected to protect the Bombers from any attacks. German fighters begin to advance on them, but they send out a decoy team first to draw the US fighter away. The plan works, and the ignorant US fighters leave the Bombers defenseless "as usual".
The Tuskeegee Airmen fleet would've possibly been shut down. Many believed that because black pilots had 'slower reflexes' and such, no one would've needed them. But one black US Colonel, a representative of the Tuskeegee Airmen, spoke with a board of white generals to see if he could get his good-flying men into an important job that would gain the Tuskeegee Airmen a little more time to fly and prove themselves as good pilots. The other boardmembers didn't show him a heck of a lot of respect for being black, but he did succeed in getting the mission he was looking for, and this mission would be one that would gain them more respect that they bargained for.
The mission that they were expected to take was to shoot down German planes, or "Jerries", that were scheduled to fly over a certain area. It was the first mission that involved the black people actually shootingplanes. The Tuskeegees met up with the German fleet, and were absolutely amazing. They shot down 8 planes in the sky, and about three or four Tuskeegees followed an aflame plane back to a German airbase, and shot at least 60 grounded airplanes. They were respected a little bit more after that, but the real respect that they earned would come later.
One highly revered US general had noticed what work that the Tuskeegee Airmen had completed. He was fairly impressed, and presented the US Bomber ambandonment issue to the Colonel representative. He agreed to help the Bombers on their mission, but he wanted better planes for his men. They agreed, and the Tuskeegees got new B-51 Mustangs, REALLY nice fighter airplanes. They wanted to paint the tail of their new planes completely red so that their enemies would know them when they saw them so they would be "struck with fear", and so they would stick out and be distinctive. One pilot said "black pilots, all red tails, yeah, we'll stick out alright!"
The black colonel talked to the Tuskeegees and said that their main mission is to protect the bombers, and not going after Jerries. Their victories shouldn't be counted by the amount of Germans shot down, but by the number of men that are returned back to their wives, and the number of fathers that are returned back to their children. They can NOT abandon the bombers.
As the Tuskeegees met up with the US Bombers, another German group of planes advanced on them once again, and tried their decoy trick on the Red Tails. It didn't work, and the whole fleet of German planes had to advance on the Americans. The Red Tails took out all of the German planes without losing a single bomber. As long as the Red Tail squadron were protecting the bombers, not one of the planes they protected were shot down.
As the years went on, the Red Tails were known as the best black pilots ever known. Later in the movie, one of the white pilots that flew one of the bombers that were protected by the Red Tails approached them in a square in Italy and thanked them greatly for always protecting them in the air. He bought them all drinks to show his appreciation. Although, they were rather surprised to be shown such hospitality <:)
That's the basic summary of the movie, but here are some pics from the real Red Tail squadron:
Comments
Excellent summary! I really want to see this movie!